Treason Season has begun in Israel; following the elections, Netanyahu is conducting negotiations to form a stable coalition. The result is not only parties throwing their ideologies into holes deeper than the Dead Sea, but also politicians seeking justifiable ways to switch parties. What is clear is that the next government will be a coalition of barely-related parties; these days we enjoy a rare opportunity to disclose additional Israeli politicians with Judas blood in their veins, who until now were deep underground, disguised as distinguished members of the Zionist elite.

The procedure is straightforward. The leaders of every party that had crossed the 2% threshold to the Knesset meets with the President and recommends a candidate for Prime Minister. More often than not, this is the leader of the largest party. A clear exception to this unwritten rule took place in 2009, when Tzipi Livni, leader of Kadima, the largest party at the time, was skipped in favor of Netanyahu, the leader of the second largest party. On this, the President has liberty. On February 1, 2013, we are beyond this point. Tomorrow, after the end of the Shabbat, Shimon Peres will meet Netanyahu and announce to the latter that he has one month to form a coalition. Failing this, Netanyahu will get an additional fortnight. Yet, the negotiations are already on; some of them include extortion via the media.

Benjamin Netanyahu emerged from the elections as the leader of the largest party in the 19th Knesset; Likud-Israel Beiteinu won 31 mandates out of 120. He needs the support of at least 61 Members of the Knesset; a Minority Government with less than 60 members is technically possible, but has proven to be extremely unstable. The second largest party is a newcomer, secular-humanist Yesh Atid led by Yair Lapid, with 19 seats. Overall, the largest winner was Lapid; the main losers were Netanyahu, Kadima-Livni, and the "Power to Israel" extremist party, which was left out of the Knesset. Kadima crashed, going from 28 seats in the former Knesset to 2 in the new one; Tzipi Livni, Kadima's Agent Saboteur, got just six seats. Thus, both parties became rather irrelevant and prime treason material. Days before the elections, the Zion elders blocked Lieberman and created another treason torch. Oddly enough, the Shelly Yachimovich, Labor leader locked her corruptibility options by announcing before the elections that she wouldn’t join a coalition led by Netanyahu under any circumstances. If she betrays herself now, it will be her political end; even in Judasland there is a moral code.

Netanyahu needs to duplicate his parliamentary force while any little traitor can set his camp on fire. The show is on.

Treason Season | ... now including Israel

Traitors Rule

Netanyahu's main threat is at home. Before the elections, a joined list was announced by Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu (creating The Rebirth of the Stern Gang). The latter is a Russian-immigrants party led by Avigdor Lieberman. The latter was wrongly attacked by the Jewish establishment before the elections, and then his Judaism mocked by ultra-Orthodox parties. Facing his political end, Lieberman may decide to play the Samson Option:

Judges 16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Lieberman is already talking about dismantling the joint list. In that case, Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu would become two separate parties, as in the last Knesset, and Netanyahu will need to negotiate also with Lieberman. "The chance of that happening in the next month is slim," Lieberman said to Hebrew media; in the Hebrew subtext, this is a clear and immediate threat.

Lieberman or not, Netanyahu's main headache has a name: Yair Lapid. With 19 seats, the latter could easily become Israel's next Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. Israel is likely to be headed by a bicephalous Likud-Yesh Atid (Lapid's party) hydra. Since these two agree on nothing, an ugly political war is going to take place. In the negotiation background, both are trying to increase their power. In other words, both parties are trying to merge into themselves small parties, like the abovementioned Kadima. After the elections, Shaul Mofaz was widely portrayed as a clown; having succeeded in diminishing the strength of his party fourteen-fold; probably this is a world record. Yet, right now he is the traitors' Cinderella. Both Likud and Yesh Atid will benefit from adding Lieutenant General Mofaz to their lines and are openly asking him to join them. Meanwhile, the Haredi parties which had portrayed Lapid as their humanist arch-enemy are searching formulas enabling them to sit with him in the same government. His two seats could slightly shift the balance of power between the two leading parties. Willing to smile under his moustache, Mofaz began growing one. It is Treason Season in Israel; pick a good seat, check out that it hadn't been poisoned, and enjoy the show!